


when it's exactly twelve o'clock

by lesbinej



Series: tumblr kiss prompts [7]
Category: Runaways (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, New Year's Eve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-12
Updated: 2018-10-12
Packaged: 2019-07-29 19:05:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16270454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesbinej/pseuds/lesbinej
Summary: Anonymous said: gertchase + 38!38. …because they’re running out of time.[title from what are you doing new year's eve/the head and the heart]





	when it's exactly twelve o'clock

Chase knows ignoring their problems (‘problems’ being ‘murderous parents currently fixated on destroying the world’) is irresponsible, but  _ damn it,  _ it’s New Year’s Eve, and Chase wants to have a party. So he’s spent the day with Molly, collecting things that they’ll need for the party tonight. He decided to keep it a surprise, limiting it to just him and Molly to set up—to which Molly was  _ thrilled  _ when he told her. 

“We’re having a party?” She asks, as Chase ushers her out the door. 

“Yes, but  _ shush,  _ or else the others will hear you.”

Molly frowns. “A secret party?”

Chase looks down at her—her face almost hidden underneath her cat hat and ten pounds of curly hair. “Yeah—I just think everyone needs something to relax, you know? It’s been so hard, lately, and we couldn’t do anything for the holidays…” They hadn’t been able to afford anything for Christmas or Hanukkah, but Chase will be damned if they can’t do anything for New Year’s. 

Molly nods sympathetically. “And you want my help?”

“Yeah—sort of like a bonding thing, if you want,” Chase says casually, trying to keep the excitement out of his voice. He likes spending time with Molly—she’s mature for her age, fun, and just a general joy to be around. Not to mention being Gert’s sister, he’s sure he can squeeze some information out of her. 

So they spend the majority of the morning shopping at the dollar store for little things—cups, cute strings of tinsel, and then, just because Chase is feeling cheesy, a plastic branch of mistletoe. It may be past the holiday season, but it’s not the New Year, yet, so maybe he still has a chance to capitalize on that seasonal magic. Molly raises an eyebrow at it when he throws it in the cart, but to her credit, doesn’t say anything—just holds up a bottle of soda and then places it in the cart. Chase lets her.

“Gert likes Pepsi, but I don’t see any,” Molly frowns. “They have three liter bottles though, which is a fuckin’ steal.”

“Language,” Chase says almost reflexively. Molly sticks her tongue out at him and picks out another bottle of off brand cola. They finish up their shopping, and Chase goes to pay while Molly peeks around at the other stuff in the store, eventually joining him back at the van. It’s easier to split up when they pay, especially when they’re with Molly—people are more likely to recognize them when they’re together. 

Molly distracts the rest of them for the rest of the day, insisting that they all go out and get ice cream—she gives Chase a wink on her way out. Chase insists that he has to stay home since he’s not feeling well, but his eyes widen when Gert protests.

“I should stay home with you,” she’s insisting. Chase looks back and forth between his tiny girlfriend and Molly, who’s trying not to laugh.

“Uh,” Chase says, as articulate as he is. “Don’t you want to spend time with your sister?”

Gert huffs out a breath. “She spends time with me every day—but you didn’t tell me you weren’t feeling well! I wouldn’t have let you go out with Molly earlier.”

“It just started,” Chase tries lamely. “It’s not a big deal, I just don’t feel like going anywhere right now.”

“Baby—” Gert starts, but Molly coughs loudly. 

“Gert, you haven’t had ice cream in weeks.”

Gert rolls her eyes. “Blame the intellectual that broke our refrigerator.”

Karolina squeaks from five feet away, where she’s making gooey eyes back and forth with Nico. “It was an accident!”

“Because blasting the fridge with your weird alien powers is a normal accident,” Gert grumbles, but Chase can hear the layer of fondness underneath. Really, she’s a huge softie, and Chase loves her for it—but now, when she’s willing to give up a trip for dessert just to stay home with Chase, is  _ not  _ the time for it. Especially since Chase has to figure out where to hang the mistletoe where they’ll happen to be walking at the same time.

Will Gert even appreciate that? He doesn’t know, but he feels cheesy, and who can blame him! He’s got leftover holiday spirit that didn’t get pumped out on Christmas, so he’s feeling extra lovey. 

Finally, after some begging and pleading, Molly shepherds everyone out to the van, and Chase is left to decorate. He spends the afternoon humming cheery Christmas songs to himself, stringing tinsel in the atrium and the kitchen, finding and dusting off a table to set their sodas, plugging in string lights to hang on their balcony (balcony is a strong word for it—it’s a roof that’s half collapsed, but it’s the only part of the Hostel that’s even sort of outside). He spends nearly an hour trying to decide where to hang the mistletoe he got; every time he thinks he’s found a place, his mind comes up with a reason not to. When he nearly hangs it over the kitchen doorway, he thinks,  _ what if Gert isn’t hungry all night?  _ So then he goes to hang it over her bedroom door, but stops himself with  _ what if she gets upset at those implications?  _ So then he decides to hang it near the soda table— _ but what if I get caught under it with someone else? What if I get caught under it with  _ **_Karolina?_ ** Deciding to place the odds in favor of his living tonight (because certainly he wouldn’t survive that encounter if Nico had anything to say about it), he finally, finally settles on a place that he’s sure he can do well to avoid until Gert’s nearby. Then all he has to do is wait.

Luckily, after spending so long deliberating over his measly decorations, Molly’s going to be back any moment. And all Chase has really done is hang tinsel—but it’s enough, he knows it. His friends never expect big blowout things, and surely, if he  _ had  _ spent all their money on party supplies, Gert and Alex would’ve beat him into the ground.  

Molly arrives not long after, but that still gives Chase plenty of time to fret about the location of his mistletoe.  _ Is it too high up? Will Gert even see it? What if she thinks this is stupid and doesn’t like the idea of it at all? What if the whole mistletoe thing is actually really misogynistic and I’m being a sexist jerk— _

His thoughts are interrupted by the rest of them walking into the atrium, and Chase forgets what he was doing at all—for a moment  _ he’s  _ confused by the looks of confusion on their faces, but then he remembers he decorated for the party that he and Molly are throwing. 

“Happy New Year’s!” He says, not bothering to hide the giant grin that splits his face. Gert looks up at him, affection in her eyes, and she beams back at him.

“Is this why you didn’t want me here?” She asks, running up to hug him, and he receives her gladly. “I thought you were mad at me.”

“Never, baby.” Chase presses a kiss to her forehead, unable to stop himself. “I wanted to spend my New Year’s with my favorite people.”

Nico rolls her eyes, her hand tightly tangled with Karolina’s, as always. “We would’ve been here anyways, you dork.”

“Yeah, but this is a  _ party,”  _ Molly points out. Karolina looks down at Nico with a soft little smile on her lips.

“You can’t say you’re not looking forward to a New Year’s party,” she murmurs, and Nico looks away from her, blushing. 

“I guess if it’s with you,” Nico sighs dramatically, then looks back at Chase. “You did good, Stein.”

Alex gives Chase a nod. Chase doesn’t know if it’s respect or displeasure at being undermined or some mixture of both. As long as Chase has Gert’s stamp of approval, though, he could’ve lived with the rest of them being upset. And from the way Gert is still hugging him and looking up at him fondly, he’s sure she can’t be mad. 

“This is amazing, Chase,” Gert murmurs. “Thank you.”

Chase beams. “Molly helped, you know.”

“Mmm,” Gert hums into his chest. 

“Molly did mostly everything, actually,” Molly says, walking past them and elbowing Chase on the arm. “Dibs on the Dr. Pepper.”

“Don’t you mean Dr. K?” Nico says with a shit-eating grin that Chase doesn’t even have to see to hear. “We don’t buy name brand in this house.”

“Name brand is for capitalists!” Gert shouts at the same time that Karolina points out confusedly: “We live underground.”

“Down with capitalism!” Molly responds, grabbing the bottle of an ambiguously brown soda that may or may not have completed a doctoral degree program. 

“Down with it!” Nico shouts in agreement, and they clink their plastic cups of Dr. K triumphantly. Alex rolls his eyes, but he looks like he’s having fun. Karolina still looks confused, but a few cheek kisses from Nico set her at ease quickly, so it’s just Gert that Chase has to worry about—not that he ever  _ doesn’t  _ worry about her. 

“Are you doing okay?” He asks her, and she hums into his chest.

“Perfect. Thanks for doing this, I think we needed it.”

Chase brushes his lips against her forehead. “I think so, too.”

Gert grins all of a sudden. “Wait one second, okay?”

Chase is confused, but patient—as he usually is with Gert—so he waits while she bustles over to the soda table and pours two cups of cola, grabbing a handful of snacks that Molly picked out, and then beckons Chase to follow her up the stairs. He does so gladly.

She takes him to his favorite spot in the Hostel—their ‘balcony.’ It’s just what used to be a garage with the roof caved in, but it’s nice. They can see the stars, some nights, and most of the walls are so useless that they actually could climb out if they wanted to. Gert hands him one of the cups in her hands and takes a sip out of the other.

“This is nice,” she says wistfully. “How long until midnight?”

Chase checks his watch. “Not long—about fifteen minutes.”

“We have time for this, then,” Gert says, wiggling her eyebrows suggestively, and Chase is almost about to ask if she really wants to start the new year with an orgasm, before she reveals the handful of snacks that she’d grabbed—Mentos. A whole fucking shitton of Mentos (and a bag of off-brand Fudge Stripes, but that’s just because those are her favorite cookie). Gert grins in that kind of toothy, blissful, carefree way that he loves from her, and Chase swears his heart melts into the floor. 

“You go first,” she says, thrusting the first packet into his hands, and since he’d do anything for Gert, he agrees. He tears open the package a little clumsily and shakes one of the minty pellets into his hands—harmless enough on its own. “Hold it under the hole!” She shrieks, as Chase goes to drop it in while they’re still standing underneath the intact ceiling, so he walks over to underneath the night sky. The stars are peeking out tonight.

“Ready?” He asks. Gert nods eagerly, watching the cup. Chase holds his breath for a second and drops the Mento in. The soda kind of ripples but… doesn’t do anything. Gert lets out the breath she was holding in a disappointed sigh.

“Must be all the off-brand shit,” she grumbles. “Maybe capitalism still sucks.”

Chase nods, taking a sip of the cola. “Agreed.”

“Does it taste weird?” Gert asks, scrunching her nose. “I never liked drinking it afterwards.”

Chase thinks about it. “Not really? Just like off-brand Coke.”

Gert nods, thoughtful. “Interesting how brands have a flavor.”

“Always,” Chase says, not really hearing what she said but trying, trying to. “Brands suck.”

“Knew you had a brain in there,” she says affectionately. Chase grins down at her—she looks so gorgeous, under the sky, and he really,  _ really  _ wants to kiss her, but it’s close to midnight, now, and he’s not going to ruin the perfect, cheesiest thing ever. So he checks his watch and sees that it’s nearing the time, it’s nearing the New Year, and Gert’s still standing there like that. Watching him.

“What’s up?” She asks, cocking her head. 

“Ten minutes, now,” he says, a sheepish smile on his face. 

“You know you can just kiss me again at midnight,” Gert says, leaning in. “We can still kiss right now.”

Chase hums. “But what if we’re still kissing at midnight, and then it’s still the same kiss from last year, so when we kiss again it won’t be midnight anymore?”

Gert laughs. “I think if my new year is spent kissing you at all, I’ll be happy.”

Chase is deciding that she’s right, and he’s going to lean in, when Karolina and Nico stumble into the room, lipstick smeared all over each other. They smell like alcohol and teenage horniness, but Chase doesn’t say that. Gert’s staring at them with her mouth hanging open.

“Hello? I’d say ‘get a room,’ but we were here first, so—get a different room.” 

Karolina’s mouth opens and closes in some sort of offended huff, and Chase can’t help but be struck when they’d stumbled upon each other in that hallway, months ago. That’s  _ exactly  _ how the two of them look, now—except maybe the roles are reversed and Karolina and Nico were the ones about to have sex—so at least there’s something to be said for continuity. 

Nico just flushes red and grabs Karolina by the hand, turning around and stomping back out of the room. Gert looks back at Chase, looking both annoyed and amused.

“Can’t believe this is a communal balcony, now,” she says. 

“Isn’t this whole place communal?” Chase asks, bringing his forearms up to rest them on her shoulders. “I thought you said ‘hostel’ literally meant communal living space.”

Gert flushes. “Shut up.”

Chase is tempted to say ‘make me,’ but that sounds stupid and way too flirty—right now he’s content to keep things calm and sweet. “I love you,” he says instead, and Gert blushes even brighter. 

“I love you, too, you dork.”

His heart never doesn’t skip a beat when she says those words back—he hopes the day never comes when it does. Chase makes his decision, then—clock be damned, New Year be damned, he’s kissing his girl. So he leans in and kisses Gert, and she kisses him back, and this is it. He loves her, he does—he loves her more than anything in the world. Her lips are so soft, and she always tastes so incredible, somehow—he doesn’t know what she does to drive him crazy like that, but he never wants her to stop. She leans into him even more, pushing his lips apart, deepening the kiss. He lets her—he’d let her do anything she wanted, honestly. He’s  _ gone  _ for Gertrude Yorkes. 

“What time is it?” Gert mumbles against his lips. He can barely hear her.

“I don’t care,” he answers, chasing her lips again as she pulls away.

“What time is it, Chase?” She sounds a little more demanding, so he checks his watch, and catches his breath. Twenty seconds to midnight. 

“Almost twelve,” he says, showing Gert his wrist. Her lips quirk in the corners. 

“Well, I can think of someone else spending their New Year’s getting an orgasm,” she snickers, and Chase has to stop his jaw from dropping open. She laughs a little when she sees his face. “Come on, that was funny.”

He relents, laughing along with her. “I love you, baby.”

“I love you, too.” 

“Happy New Year, Gert,” Chase says, leaning in again just as the clock ticks to three seconds.

“Happy New Year, Chase,” she whispers, barely able to get the words out from Chase kissing her.

He doesn’t bother telling her that he tucked a sprig of plastic mistletoe in the rafters above them.


End file.
